Our instructions were explicit. The Royal Engineers major who commanded the team had reduced them almost to monosyllables: "Get up the beach, clear a lane through the mines, turn right at the road, and meet in Le Hamel 20 minutes after the landing." He was killed in the first 300 yards, and his shattered tank blocked the one behind. The flail in front of us was hit in the petrol tank - but we got through, and it was a lonely ride to the road.

I was the gunner in our crew, and to break the waterproof sealing round the turret it was necessary to do a 360-degree traverse before we started sweeping. It it provided an all-round view of the assault. It was slightly unreal, like watching a film, as if one were set apart from the infantrymen struggling through the water or getting shot on the sand.

We reached the road and turned right towards Le Hamel. When we turned the first bend, we realised that it was not the one we had been shown in aerial pictures. There was no time to worry, because immediately afterwards we plunged into a bomb crater.

The invasion wasn't 10 minutes old, and men and equipment were piling up on the road behind us. A furious argument began among a group of officers (none of whom had anything to do with us) about the need to get our tank out of the way so they could push on towards Le Hamel, or wherever they had been ordered to go. We stood there, foolishly holding a tow-rope, hoping for the best, while the infantry - with relieved patience - flopped at the side of the road and got their fags out.

We always felt a bit aggrieved in our crew about D-day. Our tank commander got a mention in dispatches: the rest of the crew got nothing except abuse from people who wanted us out of their way. It had been a long, confusing day, and we had spent most of it hanging about, never more than half a mile inland. But it had not been entirely wasted, and we were on land again - and alive, in spite of the unspoken fear that our orders covered only the first 20 minutes because no one expected us to survive much longer than that.